Overcoming Imposter Syndrome & Building Self Belief

Hello and welcome to episode 5 of the Chloe Careers Podcast. Yes, I've decided to change the name from The Chloe Effect to Chloe Spillane Podcast just to keep that brand consistency and personal brand aligned. So Chloe Spillane Podcast is the name of it moving forward. So hello and welcome. We are on episode 5, 5 weeks in. Last week we had an episode on managing career change and how to Start a Career Change, and I had a lot of really positive feedback from that one. Um, I've had some more reviews come in and people found that really helpful. So thank you for obviously sharing that. Um, I'm going to be doing another episode on career change and the next steps that you need to put in place. So thanks for the feedback, everyone. Love to say that you're enjoying what I'm putting out there. Um, okay. So if you're new here, welcome. This is the Chloe Spillane Podcast, obviously, where we talk all things careers. Uh, we talk about running a business. Being a female business owner, and being a female in general. So welcome, so glad that you're here and along for the ride. Okay, so we get things started with a bit of an update from me. Um, what has happened in the last week? It has been a really intense week for me actually. I have launched the Interview Blueprint, which is my very first online course, uh, that is over like a series of lessons. So The course is 7 lessons with everything and anything I know about the interview process. I go through everything from like your interview mindset to managing the different people in the process and what's important about what each of those people want to hear. It's all about interview frameworks and structures and understanding the methodology that goes between like how a question and answer is formed and what they want to hear. We go into salary negotiations, we go into follow-up strategies. We go into how to make people like you, which is also very important in the whole interview process. And yeah, it just gives you everything you need to be successful. And I think another part of it that I'm getting a lot of feedback on is that it helps people uncover barriers or blockers they didn't even know they had. The thing is, having the perfect answer isn't what is going to get you hired. Yes, you need to have a strong answer and you need to be able to articulate your value, but You need to be able to connect with the interviewer, and you need to be able to show alignment between you, the organization, the role, and how you're going to be a fit for their team and how you're going to be the solution to their problem. So there is so much more that goes into just having the right or the perfect answer. It's about how you hold yourself, how you articulate those answers. And if you memorize all of your scripts from an AI tool and you go into that interview and they ask you a question that you're not really sure of, or that you weren't expecting, those scripts are not going to be helping you because you'll go, oh my God, I just prepared, I prepared with all those scripts and now they haven't asked me a question based on my script. I don't know. Oh my God, how am I going to, how am I going to handle that? And so, you know, handling curveballs or difficult questions is also a major part of it. And yet we've got 7 people that have jumped in. I think maybe actually, I think I'd launched it before I did the last podcast because I remember saying I had 2 people jump in. So we've had 7 people jump in now, which is incredible. I, that's like the biggest course launch that I've ever had. So I'm celebrating myself for that. I'm so proud of myself and everything that I'm doing to push that out there and to, and to, um, just start making sales again and be successful. Uh, it's a really good feeling. Um, and I, I'm feeling like I'm starting to pick up momentum and things are starting to move along. Um, which, you know, for anyone that's listening, when you start to when you have to dig really deep and you have to make real change happen, when you start to finally see results, it's incentivizing and it's motivating. I was talking to my mom about it actually, like even going on a health journey, you know, once you start to see measurements go down or you feel a bit better about yourself or someone makes a compliment on how you're looking, like it just incentivizes you to keep going. And that's how I'm feeling with the business so far. Personally, nothing has really changed. As I said, I'm pretty tired at the moment from all the work I've been doing, but it's that good tired. It's like I'm tired because I'm working. I'm like, I'm stretching myself. Like I'm being so productive and I'm stretching my capacity and what I can do in a day. And it's pushing me, but I'm feeling good about it. It needs to happen. And I can just feel great things are coming from me. Like I'm manifesting it. I'm doing everything I need. To make it happen, um, alongside that manifestation. And, you know, I, I know something great is coming for me very, very soon. So keep your ears open for when I jump on here and I'm like, oh my God, guys, I made $50,000! That, that would be the day. That'll be the day. Um, what else happened? Oh, this was super exciting for me and a major, major move. Um, I had my very first intern start. So she started yesterday. Um, she was brilliant, and I'm so so happy with myself that I just kind of made a decision to go and bring someone in. Because yes, I was guiding her through a lot of things and teaching her on different tools and systems and getting logins sorted, but just instantly she lifted, lifted the workload for me. So I didn't feel like— there was a couple of things she was able to do for me, and that immediately gave me more capacity in my day to do other, other things I wanted to focus on. What I wanted to also share is my mindset and how I have been just fueling myself to have this like insane drive at the moment. I'm so determined, I am so driven, I am so tenacious. I am putting myself out there every day in every single way that I can. And like, of course I'm sure there's something else I could be doing, but I am doing— I'm doing as much as I can. And I know that I am because I, I just keep pushing myself when I get to the end of the day and I go Oh my gosh, I could just pass out right now. And my family can attest to this, like I'm a zombie pretty much in the evening. And yeah, I really am committed to change. And I wanted to touch on that because that is what the topic of today is, managing mindset. And I, what I think is really important here is to think about, you know, in our career, in our life, there are certain mindsets that we can carry through that, that can either damage or hold us back and be really quite debilitating. So I wanted to, you know, talk about what those different mindsets are, how they can, how they can indeed hold you back and how to start overcoming those. And I'm obviously going to talk about my experience as well. So a couple of mindsets that you might be familiar with and have even experienced yourself throughout your career. The first one being imposter syndrome and the second one just being a general lack of self-belief. Not trusting yourself that you can do the thing. So with imposter syndrome, that is essentially, you know, believing that you are not deserving of something or you shouldn't be there or you're not good enough to be in the room or they shouldn't be hiring you or you don't know why you're in that interview, like there's so many other people that are better than you, second-guessing everything, kind of like, I don't understand how I got here. That's all that kind of imposter syndrome thinking. You know, I had someone speak to me about it the other day, and it was that feeling of going into a room and feeling that you're like the dumbest person in the room. That's imposter syndrome because you don't feel that you deserve to be in the same room as the people that you're with. And it can be, you know, it can be really hard to manage. I think where it can come up in your career specifically are a few areas. When you are new to something, so when you are starting a brand new job, you will most likely feel like an imposter. Like you'll have those thoughts of, I shouldn't be here, I can't do this, I'm not capable, everyone else is better than me, everyone else knows what they're doing, what am I doing? That's all thoughts of imposter syndrome. What I want to share with you and help you if you are in a situation like this, help you identify is that when you are new to something, that is the very thing. You are new. You are not going to be an expert straight away. You can't possibly expect yourself to be an expert when you start a new job. So these feelings or these thoughts that you're having that you don't deserve to be there, you shouldn't be there, you don't know enough, oh my God, everyone's going to find you out and you're a fraud. It's like, well, actually, I should be— I'm exactly where I need to be. I'm in the learning phase. So something I want to encourage you to do if you find yourself having these thoughts is to actually just be a bit kinder to yourself and go, you know what, I know that I will get up to speed. I know that I will be successful in this role, but I need to give myself time to be able to do that. I am not a robot. I will not know everything day, I need to have time to get to that point. Now, what else you can do to kind of manage that is you need to be really across expectations. So in order to get to where you, where you want to be and where you need to be to be successful and deliver in that role is you need to know what you need to do to be successful. You need to know from your manager, like, what are the expectations from you over your, like, your first 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, even your first month, like, What does your manager and team expect of you in that first month? And just knowing that will eliminate some of those feelings of imposter syndrome because you know exactly what you need to deliver in that, say, first month that you were in that new job. The expectations are clear. You are new. There are skills that you need to learn. They know that. And you are being set up for success. So that is one thing that will just help you with that. The other thing to remind yourself of is you got the job. You got the job, which means the interviewer, the hiring manager, the recruiter, whoever else interviewed you, they think you are capable of doing the job. So why can't you think you are capable of doing the job? Why don't you see your potential? Everyone else sees it. The only person that is lacking your ability or doubting your capability, sorry, you. So get the positive lens, remind yourself, oh, oh yeah, actually I applied for this job, I got the interview, I went through the interview process, and then I was offered the job. So I do deserve to be here and I am capable of doing the job. If they see that I'm capable, I need to see that I'm capable. So whenever you have those negative thoughts coming in, those very intrusive negative thoughts come in, like I know they do, clock it. Wait a second. No, I'm brand new. I am not going to know everything straight away. If I have questions, I'm going to ask people around me and use my resources to get up to speed. I'm not going to do everything by myself. And this is a lesson learned from my, from me personally. Don't try and be the hero. Don't try and be the person that can just do everything and figure it all, figure it all out themselves. Don't be that person. If you need help, ask for help. Because the sooner you can ask for help, the quicker you are going to get up to speed. I can personally attest to when you try and do everything by yourself because you feel like you're going to be a pain or annoy someone or someone's going to judge you or not think that you're good enough because you're asking for help. If you do that, you are going to stall your own progress and you're probably going to impact the greater team because you are not using your resources or using those around you to understand the problem or to fix whatever you need to, fix whatever you need to solve. So use people around you, ask for help. The other thing to remind yourself is they know, they see my capability in delivering this role, so I need to see it as well. Okay. So whenever you have those intrusive thoughts, clock it and remind yourself of those top 3 things. And that will help you get rid of those thoughts throughout the day. And the more that you will do that, you will start to rewire your brain. Your brain, and I'm not a brain expert, but I know this from my own experience, you can retrain your brain. So the more that you remind yourself of those reasons why you're there and why you deserve to be there, the more your brain will start to recognize it and believe it. So that is an exercise for you to do if you are struggling with imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome as well can come up a lot in the interview room. And I think If you are feeling that when you sit in that interview chair and they're asking you the questions, you're giving your answers, but you just have this little voice in your head going, oh my God, that was a terrible answer. Why did you tell them that? No, like there's going to be so many other people that are better than you. I don't even know how you got this interview. This is a fluke. You don't even deserve to be here. All of those kind of thoughts, you need to actually be like listening to those thoughts before the interview and practicing how you overcome them in the moment. Because if you're not practicing your interview technique, your answers, and letting yourself hear those thoughts. If you hear them for the first time in the interview room, they're going to throw you off. And again, the way to best handle those kind of thoughts is to, is to clock it and identify that actually I'm in this interview room because they saw my resume and they saw the potential in me being able to do the job. I deserve to be here just as much as anyone else that is before or after me in this interview process. Now I want to talk about how imposter syndrome has impacted me and how I've moved through it. And I always like to relate these topics to me, um, to show you that this happens to all of us, uh, and there are ways to move through it. So imposter syndrome for me came up in the biggest way when I got made redundant and when I made— and when I started this business. So what that— what it would sound like and look and feel like is, so I started these social media accounts and I was posting videos on how to interview and how to write a CV and all of that And I remember I would be posting on LinkedIn and I'd post up a video about how to put together a resume or how to answer a certain interview question. And my immediate thoughts would be, oh my God, Chloe, people are going to be, people are going to be judging you and everyone at your workplace that you got made redundant from, they're all going to be going, Chloe can't do this. What does Chloe think she's doing? Chloe's not qualified for doing this. I can't believe Chloe's putting herself out there like that. I was just riddled with these thoughts of how everyone from my prior workplace where I got made redundant going to be judging me and, you know, sharing opinions of me or looking at what I'm putting out online and going, oh my God, I can't believe she's doing that. And then I even ran into some of the people that made me, um, from the organization where I was made redundant at an event. And I remember just kind of, you know, I had this conversation with them and it was pretty, again, very new into me starting this journey. I think only literally maybe 3 months in. And they made a comment around, oh, we see that you've gone out on your own and I don't know, like in that moment I felt that they were doing like a pity party thing. They were like, oh well, like you're doing the thing, good luck. It looks like, you know, you're alive and okay, like good for you, you're doing it. And in that moment I was like, oh wow, like they really pity me and, you know, they don't believe in me. And it was a real moment of me going, actually, it doesn't matter what all of these people think of me. The person that matters the most about what I'm doing and how I'm showing up is me. I need to be, I need to be backing myself enough that if I'm putting myself out there, I can go, I believe in what I'm saying. And no matter how many people want to share their opinion, no matter how many people want to judge me, I'm going to keep showing up for me and the people that connect with me because that is what is important. And whoever wants to have an opinion about me or gossip about me or talk about me behind my back or have some kind of opinion or make some kind of judgment, go for it, go wild. I actually don't care anymore. And that was like a big turning point for me from changing my mindset to going, oh my gosh, everyone's judging me, everyone's, you know, looking at what I'm doing and thinking I'm a fraud and I shouldn't be out here, to me actually going, you know what, I don't care what they all think because they are not my people, they are not in my world. And the people that matter the most is firstly myself and the people that I connect with on this platform, because I know that through me sharing my voice, through me sharing what is important to me and what I know to be true and my values and my experience my expertise, my professional capabilities, all of that, it will connect with the right people. And also the people that are going to judge me or make negative comments about me, they are projecting their own insecurities onto me. They are saying internally, well, I don't have the guts or the tenacity to do what Chloe's doing, but I'm just going to try and pull her down because it makes me feel better. That's what it is. So that was my big turning point in imposter syndrome. And since then, like, yes, I have moments of freaking out or being scared to do something or, you know, whenever I do something new, when I, like, I think when I ran my first careers workshop, I was pretty nervous to get up in front of a room of people that were mid to senior in the, I think, professional services, financial services, and talk about career change and career direction. So, you know, there's always moments for me where I do feel like that fear of, oh God, am I going to, am I going to be able to do this? But it's that moment of going, no, you can do this. You have got this far. 'You know that you're capable, back yourself. These people believe in you. They've signed up to be here. They want to listen to you. They want to see you.' So I go through my own series of mantras and self-talk in my own head to get through those little moments of imposter syndrome. The other mindset shift I think is really important to talk about is when we have a lack of self-belief or a lack of trust in ourselves. This can come up a lot when we are thinking about changing careers. Because if we are in a role where we know what we're doing, we're going through the motions, getting through it day by day, but we're not really feeling fulfilled. We know that we are capable of more, but we just don't think we're good enough to put ourselves out there. We're like, mm, I don't really, I don't think I'm good enough to do that. Like that person's doing that. That's amazing. Good, good for them. I can't do that. 'That's just not me. I'm not capable of that.' That's a lack of self-belief, and that's not trusting yourself that you can take the leap or take the big move to do that next big thing. Now, personally, me, I don't have that lack of self-belief problem. I am someone that I will go for things, and I'll be like, 'No, I can make this happen. I'm going to do it.' And I'm so determined. And I think that also comes from this innate need to prove myself when I was younger, and I just wanted to be accepted, and I was a huge people pleaser. So I think those kind of intrinsic behaviors that I've had to work through contribute to this, contribute to my drive to go and do things and do them well because I have that like high achiever mentality and all of that. But, you know, that comes with its own, own detrimental parts. But this lack of self-belief and not backing yourself enough to do the big thing that can hold you back so much because I know that if you have thought at any moment in your career that you are perhaps capable of more and you didn't do it, that was a moment where you held yourself back from fear. That was a moment where you said to yourself, I can't do that. I'm too afraid of the unknown. I can't take that risk. I'm not going to make it. That was a moment where you didn't believe in yourself enough. You didn't back yourself enough. And when you do that to yourself, you put yourself right back in that corner or right back in that comfort zone of going, I'm just going to stay here because it's comfortable, it's fine, it pays the bills, I don't need to move. And that's, that's keeping you in that zone of never really experiencing what your true capabilities could be. You know, living a life of, oh, I'm just going to keep myself safe and not put myself out there and not do the scary thing, even though I know I could maybe do it. How is that going to make you feel at the end of your career? If you look back at your career and you go, oh, there were so many moments where I could have done more. Stick with that for a moment. Doesn't feel very good, does it? No. So what I am telling you right now is that if you are someone— look, if you're someone that is happy staying in comfort, you just want to do like do your thing, run through the motions, get paid, do your job, you don't care, like fine, absolutely fine. Do whatever works for you. This is not me saying everyone has to push themselves out of their comfort zone. I'm saying this is for people who know they want more, they know they can do more, but they just have too much of this fear holding them back. That's what this podcast is for. So if you are one of those people that continuously hold yourself back, that continuously you know, stays within the comfort zone for fear of the unknown or fear of failure or fear of what's not going to happen next, this is a wake-up call for you. And I know it's going to come across as harsh, but this is the moment where you need to actually start backing yourself a little bit more. There is no one else out there that will back you to do the big scary thing. Yes, you might get support from family. Yes, you might get people encouraging you, but no one will make the change for you. You need to make the change for yourself. If you want to change the current situation that you're in, you need to start putting the steps in place to, to make that change happen. And yes, there might be a risk involved. Yes, it will be scary. Yes, you might fail. But the more that you can get to a place of going, no matter what I come up against, I will get myself through it. The more capable you will be of taking those leaps of faith, of taking those high-risk moments, of doing the big scary thing, because you know that you can get through it. And the only way you're going to know that you get through it is when you give yourself evidence of doing that. So you actually need to do something scary, do something big, take that leap, show yourself that you can do it. And even if you fail, that you can get back up again, you need to give yourself evidence of that. And I've given myself plenty of evidence of failing and getting back up again, of overcoming setbacks, of coming back from a mistake. And in all of those moments, I gave myself evidence that I was able to come back from any kind of challenge that confronted me. And that's the space that you want to get to, to be able to achieve the great big thing that you know you can do. And the thing that you really desire. So my task for you over the next week, if you are someone that wants more, but you know, you're holding yourself back, I want you to think of one scary thing you can do this week and can commit to. And I want you to write it down and I want you to commit to a day, maybe even a time or a moment when you were going to do the scary thing. And it could be anything. It could be applying for a job that you would never usually apply for. It could be reaching out to someone that you used to work with for a networking connection because you know they might be able to help you, but you are feeling too— you have too much fear or shame around that. It could be putting up a post on LinkedIn talking about a topic you're really passionate about, but you're too afraid of what everyone's going to think or judge you for posting on LinkedIn. It could be anything that scares you right now. It could be asking your boss for a pay rise. It could be going for the promotion, whatever it is. You don't have to go full ball and do the full thing in one day, but you need to take one step towards making that thing happen. Show yourself that you back yourself enough to do the big scary thing, because I can guarantee you, once you show yourself that you can do it, so many more things become possible for you. That's certainly been my experience. Wonderful. Well, that brings us to the end of today's episode. I think this was a, a big one for people who want to see change but haven't been prepared to put the steps in place to do it, or people that have that fear of the unknown and keep holding themselves back. This is, as I said, this is a wake-up call, and this is the moment to trust yourself and back yourself to do it. Go for it. I've got you. I'm in your corner. I look forward to hearing any thoughts on how you go with that through either my social media channels or through the podcast. Now please, if you enjoy this podcast, I would love it if you could give it a rating and a review. Give me a follow if you're on my social media channels. I'm on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn. You can follow me across all those platforms. My DMs are always open. I jump on lives most days, so you can always have a chat to me about your career and job search, and we can talk about how I can support you moving forward. So thank you everyone for tuning in for another week of Chloe Careers, and I look forward to seeing you next week. Bye.